Reply #91: Wear It In Good Health, Sir [View All]

[The Magistrate]

Several points may be worth a small engagement here.

My comments on electoral matters proceed from considerations of strategy, which requires an appreciation of what can be achieved with the means available. To pursue an unattainable goal is folly; conditions must be adjusted to make the goal attainable. The headlong charge fails always against a prepared and resolute opponent.

The left in this country has indeed become rooted in the academy and in privilege. It has ceased to be a mass movement, and this can be demonstrated by any election result over the last several national contests. You may complain of this all you please, but you cannot adduce numbers in support of your protest.

Your attempt to adduce "Reagan Democrats" in support of the late date for estrangement rather gives away the game. These are the same people who voted for Wallace and Nixon, in '68 and '72; working-class voters reacting against their perception that the left was un-patriotic and concerned more with tearing down things they valued than building up things that would bring them benefit in their daily lives. Whether that perception is accurate or not is beside the point: it exists, is deeply rooted among the people, and cannot be ignored as a factor in political calculation.

You will have to explain to me, Sir, why you feel the media does not influence your view, but defines mine. It should be interesting and amusing to read. It is natural enough, when persons disagree with you, to hunt up all manner of explainations for it, without admitting the possibility the other view might be as valid, or even more valid, than one's own. Hence the popularity, among those who hold views not too wide-spread, of various manipulations and conspiracies, and general foolishness, as explainations. The truth is that political engagement is a taste like any other, not too different from following stock car races or collecting Franklin Mint commemorations. It is not a particularly wide-spread taste. Most people have enough in the immediate circumstances of their lives to engage the bulk of their attention, and pay attention to political concerns only when these force themselves upon their notice, and when they do, their chief desire is to get shut of them as quickly and painlessly as possible, and get back about their routine business.